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Editorial

Silencing journalists

The Wall Street Journal on the silencing of journalists by dictators as U.S. power recedes Friday was World Press Freedom Day and a grim reminder of how many voices have recently been silenced by the world’s authoritarian regimes. Our colleague Evan Gershkovich remains wrongfully imprisoned by Russia, where he is being held without a trial or even formal charges. He is one of far too many imprisoned journalists, and those numbers are growing. Hong Kong newspaper owner Jimmy Lai remains in prison on accusations of endangering China’s national security. The charges against him, ...

Globalization predatory

Developing nations have long complained that globalisation has enthroned western currencies in such a way as to subsidise living standards in the rich world. Last year, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—the Brics—even talked of an alternative common currency to replace the dollar. Wealthy countries, perhaps, think that their ambitious goals for aid defuse arguments over their “ exorbitant privilege ”. As TS Eliot put it, “between the idea and the reality … falls the shadow”. A paper out last week calculates that the bottom four-fifths of humanity finance the ...

Armed troops vs peaceful protests

On April 24 during a visit to Columbia University, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) warned that if the wave of protests against Israel’s U.S.-funded war in Gaza on college campuses, including UCLA and USC, is not contained quickly, “there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.” How troubling that the man who is the third in line to the presidency seems to think that it’s OK to silence largely peaceful student protests by sending in armed troops. It’s a terrible idea, with a deadly history in the U.S. It was the Ohio ...

A Trump-Biden debate

Is President Biden going to debate Donald Trump as the November election nears? “I am. Somewhere. I don’t know when,” Mr. Biden said Friday in an interview with Howard Stern. “I’m happy to debate him.” Nice to hear, though we’ll believe it when we see it. If the 81-year-old President wants to skip the stage this fall, Mr. Trump’s refusal to debate his GOP primary opponents has handed Mr. Biden an easy excuse. Now Mr. Trump, who for the record is 77, is demanding to debate early and often, because he wants to suggest that Mr. Biden isn’t up to taking hard ...

SCOTUS and public camping

Of the 653,000 people who experience homelessness in the United States, 41 percent live in the nine westernmost states, according to the most recent federal survey. That includes the five states with the highest rates of unsheltered people. There are many reasons for this, from patterns of poverty and drug addiction to the benign weather in California—68 percent of whose 181,000 homeless people were unsheltered, more than any other state. A little-known but crucial factor, however, is that all these states are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, ...

US aid to Ukraine

In chaos theory, the flapping of butterfly wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. This weekend, Ukraine experienced a butterfly moment. Donald Trump’s efforts to conceal the fact that he bought the silence of a porn star before the 2016 election landed him in court, facing charges that preoccupy him enough for congressional Republicans to reject his policy of prematurely ceding territory to Russia in return for peace in Ukraine. Kyiv will now get billions of dollars to buy the weapons crucial for it to defend against, and push back, the Russian advance. It is ...